A judge has demanded a Darth Vader impersonator be dragged before him after he succumbed to the Dark Side, attacked two Jedi with a metal crutch, and failed to show up for the resulting court appearance on an assault rap.…

Microsoft has officially unveiled a preview of Live Mesh, the web services platform seen as a key plank of the company's aggressive software plus services strategy.…

It looks like Al Gore is going to need every cent of the $300m war chest he's amassed for climate persuasion. Americans polled by Gallup for 'Earth Day' value "traditional", bottom-up environmental issues such as pollution and conservation as being more worrying than Global Warming. Remarkably, the level of concern about greenhouse gas emissions has barely wavered in a generation. Recklessness, or Huck Finn-style American common sense?…

Honda has developed a wacky walking gadget designed to making walking much less of an effort.…

VCs have spunked $1.5bn on useless Web 2.0 companies in recent years. And millions more in capital will be wasted in deals at Tim 2.0'Reilly's webfest over the next few days. So why can't one of the most promising start-ups, that potentially brings the web to over a billion new surfers, get funding?…

Police in the Democratic Republic of Congo earlier this week cuffed for their own protection 13 "suspected sorcerers accused of using black magic to steal or shrink men's penises", Reuters reports.…

Sun Microsystems is planning demonstrations but little by way of final code for its JavaFX rich-internet application challenge to Microsoft and Adobe Systems at next month’s JavaOne.…

Google has been hit with a class action suit in California over its AdSense system.…

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has ordered online gambling outfit Paddy Power "not to repeat" the approach it adopted in a newspaper ad which showed a "short man" in the back of stretch limo flanked by women under the title "Who says you can't make money being short?"…

Review Take a look at the specifications of the new Samsung M110 and you could be forgiven for thinking that you were looking at the details for a handset made a decade ago rather than something fresh off the drawing board.…

The European Parliament is calling for a Europe-wide donor card in order to reduce the shortage of organs available for transplant.…

A Reaper unmanned combat aircraft has crashed in Afghanistan. According to reports, restricted technology aboard the wrecked roboplane was salvaged by British special forces and the remains were then destroyed by a bomb from a manned jet.…

Acer Inc today reported a drop in first quarter net profit after one-off investment gains this time last year.…

Toshiba may have canned production of HD DVD hardware, but that didn't stop US consumers buying into the format last month, new market stats reveal.…

The dog and pony show over whether the BBC should contribute to distribution costs for iPlayer rolled into Westminster yesterday, with Ofcom chief executive Ed Richards telling MPs he doesn't believe forcing Auntie to cough up for a fibre network is the best plan.…

AMD may have regained some lost market share between Q3 and Q4 2007, but it was down year on year, the latest figures from market watcher iSuppli reveal.…

Travel, webmail, and social networking sites are more commonly blocked by businesses than gambling and adult content sites.…

Apple is to buy a microprocessor design company founded by one of the key minds behind the ARM chip design that went on to become Intel's erstwhile XScale family.…

Google has started recording the streets of its first non-US city for its Street View service. Google vans with mounted cameras have been spotted on the streets of Rome and Milan.…

Want to develop a mobile app, but unsure which devices support the APIs you want to use?…